Overlaying and comparing workouts by Jim Vance

12 July 2018

One of the best features of Today’s Plan ‘activity summary’ window is that athletes and coaches can overlay two workouts or race files on the same screen, to better compare the differences between two sessions. This can be done visually in the graph, or more detailed within the chart posted below the graph, where specific intervals can be compared.

It is very common for athletes to complete the same or a similar workout in their preparations, multiple times. When one can overlap a workout on top of another, the differences in successes and failures within each can be better seen and accounted for in the future. Here’s a run workout comparison, of the same workout, completed 8 days apart for this athlete.

The athlete shows higher peak values in the early efforts, and lower HR in the later efforts. These are great signs of the athlete’s improvements.

For coaches you can also overlay files from other athletes, also allowing you to see how individual athletes might react to the same workout. Athletes often respond differently depending on their physiology and their strengths and weaknesses. Another way to use this feature is to overlay your race data to help identify if the training you are doing is the specific to your event.

Use the overlay feature when comparing your workouts of similar structure and execution, and look for improvements, or use it to break down your racing. If there aren’t improvements, then the training approach needs to be addressed.